PROPEL

Summary

PROPEL's view of the seafarers’ recruitment industry is that it's highly fragmented and rife with exploitation. PROPEL aims to be a safe web platform for seafarers to find jobs; a tool for employers and recruitment agencies to find the best talent. Founded by an entrepreneurial team with a successful maritime business.

• Each month an estimated 100,000 seafarers (6% of workforce) start a new contract world-wide
• We estimate that the global addressable market is around $510m per year
• Launched in May, attracted over 11,000 users with minimal spending
• Money raised will be used to scale and grow our user base

Idea

We estimate that every month approx. 150,000 seafarers start a new contract, the majority of which hail from just five countries - Philippines, China, Indonesia, Russia and India.

However, despite there being over 1.6m seafarers globally, the industry is facing a shortage of seafarers due to increasing demand.

Exploitation within the seafarer recruitment industry is rife. In many countries, seafarers are often unable to apply for jobs directly themselves, instead being “represented” by recruitment agencies who control the process. Often, said agencies force charges and levies on the seafarer, placing them into debt before they even have a job.

PROPEL aims to change that.

PROPEL provides a single web-based professional network platform for seafarers to find and apply for the maritime job of their dreams, without control of any third party; and a tool for employers and agencies to find the best talent.

PROPEL is designed to:

• Let seafarers create a full digital maritime profile and digital discharge book.
• Enable future integration with AIS and major maritime databases - which could empower location data in terms of ports they visited, as well as cross-referencing a user's specific ship experience against a specific range of machinery, types of cargo carried.
• Let recruiters and employers find matching candidates via matching algorithms.

Team

Propel is founded by three friends with a deep passion for seafaring. The team is highly motivated and focused on growing Propel as the go-to recruitment platform for seafarers. Propel office will be located next to Cleanship, a company Chris founded with the aim to benefit from the network and clientele opportunities in the area.

Chris McMenemy, Co-founder & CEO (Part-time):

Founder of Cleanship, a company dedicated to assisting shipowners in complying with environmental legislation and improve their environmental impact. Since 2012, Cleanship has grown to become an industry stalwart, with a turnover of £3.3m.

Chris is a qualified naval architect, with a passion for ships that goes back to his childhood.

Fraser Matthew, Co-founder (Full-time):

A qualified Master Mariner and serving Captain, seafarer union representative, marine lecturer and passionate maritime disrupter.

Fraser has spent his adult years working at sea and seeing the need for the maritime industry to embrace modern technology. He believes that the rights of seafarers should be enhanced and protected.

Stuart McKenna, Co-founder (Part-time):

Stuart is a senior manager in the Cleanship Group. One of Stuart’s main passions is helping the maritime industry with future disruption and improving the environmental impact of shipping.